Waking Up!

I woke this morning to a pink, purple and orange sky. My clock's red letters announced the time to be 7:01am. "Why was I awake?", I thought, "I can sleep another hour at least". I am not an early riser, between being a night owl and having had acute insomnia in the past I am not entirely sure what a normal night sleep should even look like.

For several years I took a sleep aide just to fall asleep. It was supposed to keep me asleep all night (for at least 6 hours), but it never did. It did however, help me to fall asleep, which at the time was a huge deal. For a long time I thought not being able to fall asleep for hours and then waking a couple hours after I finally did get to sleep to be a huge nuisance until one day I was listening to a minister talking about *intercession. 

As I sat there listening to the minister explain the importance of listening for God in the middle of the night, I knew that he was talking directly to me. The minster used for his text First Samuel Chapter 3. I have since that day listened in the night for God's voice. Sometimes God does speak to me to pray for someone I know, or for some circumstance in my life. Sometimes God directs me to a verse in  the Bible that I need to read. I have heard there is an app on the smartphone that you can use to record your dreams or whatnot in the middle of the night, I just use a pen and notepad. I promise it ain't pretty. Sometimes I just pray to fall back to sleep. Since then I've heard of so many people being woken in the night to hear God speak to them. 

I often wondered over the years why it was that I and others are woken in the middle of our sleep cycle. I never thought to ask God why, until one day back in August of 2010 I did think to ask, and he answered me. He answered not why He wakes others, but why he wakes me. His answer was pretty simple. "Because you get too busy during the day to listen to me." Ouch, did that hurt. 

August of 2010 was a huge month for me. It was life changing. That month God literally stopped me in my tracks. I was sitting in a chair watching TV with Josiah one evening when I just stopped. I couldn't move my head, my arms, anything. Josiah was just 10 at the time and he was such an amazement to me. When he realized that something was wrong he called his dad at work and Jason rushed home. I spent the next 7 days in the hospital due to this sudden unexplained paralysis. I went from being a very active mother of four to not being able to move my own arms or legs. It was very scary. They never did find a real reason for the paralysis. 

It was in the middle of all this that I asked, God why. I asked God a whole lot of whys that week. And in His gracious love He chose to answer many of those questions with kindness and patience. Some He did not answer, some He still hasn't answered. However hard that is for me sometimes not to have all the answers I have learned to let what I don't know go. At least most of the time. 

The day I came home from the hospital, August 24th, 2010, I could hardly walk. Taking care of my four children then 10, 8, 6 & 3 was no easy task. Jason helped a lot. I prayed a lot. One question I asked God that day was, "God, what can I do?" I heard His voice as clear as crystal, "Walk a **marathon." 

"What?!" I could hardly walk from the van to the couch, how could I walk a marathon. That is not a good sense of humor God has. I asked God again and His answer was the same... and somehow I knew He meant business. 

So the next morning I walked to the mailbox with my 10 year old and almost 9 year old holding me up. I sat on a step stool that my 6 year old brought out to the curb. Then I walked to the end of the street, which is only three houses down. I sat at the curb on that old step stool waiting for strength in my legs and mind to return. 

It was so difficult just to force my body to work. It was beyond hard to make my body obey my mind. Something that I had for 35 years taken for granted felt almost impossible. I walked to the end of the street. I had to pray for every step I took. I had to ask God for strength just to put one foot in front of the other. I had to cry. In fact, I cried a lot over the next few months. I walked two blocks, then three, and then by December I could walk a mile. 

I never stopped praying for those steps. After a while the steps got easier. My ability to use my body again was restored. I still have mornings when I first wake up and have to force my body to move. There are times when I blank out, to the annoyance of my family, I am sure. But I have full use of my body 99.9% of the time and for me that is a huge blessing from God. 

It has taken me five years to do it, but I now walk 10 miles five to six days a week. It takes me all of three hours to do it, but I am doing it. Every step I pray. I pray now for different things. I pray for the people in the houses I pass. I pray for my family. I pray for the community. I also thank God. I thank God for health, for freedom, for my life, for my family. Well, all kinds of things.

I have to admit here that I also complain to God about all the stupid things that don't really matter. I complain about my rights, my feelings, my bad attitudes. I am not so good at the dying daily part of this Christian faith. And He listens, He's okay with me being a Grumpy Gus at times. Though sometimes I stay their a bit too long. And I get reminded of who He is and who I am. I am working toward having a more thankful attitude in my life. I know it is the way God would like me to live my life, but it is not so natural to me as it is for some. Or maybe it is not natural to anyone, and some just make it look easy.

So anyway, in the past year or so I have been getting better rest. At least three or four nights a week I am getting a full nights rest. My insomnia is down to only two or at the most three nights a month. 

8 or 9 months ago I kicked a caffeine habit I have had since I was 12 years old. I am actively trying to reduce all sugar fluids which is so hard for me. I have found a great secret, which is that my son Micah is the best hot tea maker in the family. I plan on using that secret to my advantage over the next few months. 

In the last eleven months I have also lost 52lbs. I am trying to lose another 20 to 25lbs. by March. These last 20 to 25lbs. have been a lot harder to lose then the first 52lbs.

In this last year God has been showing me something that for me seems like a huge revelation. Maybe it is obvious for some, but for me it has been a truth hard won. That truth is that "we" (human beings) are spirit, soul and body. We are not just spirit, or just soul (mind, will, emotions), or just body, but we are all three. We can no more remove our soul from our existence then we can cut our spirits out of our bodies. God has not just been teaching me this, but also, that if one part of who we are is broken, all of who we are is broken. Ultimately, He has been showing me that He is the one who can fix ALL of me, if I let Him. 

For many years I tried to get my spirit in shape by doing all the "right God stuff", instead of having a right relationship with God. I have to say this isn't something I was ever taught in a class, from a sermon or in Sunday school. It was just what I observed that I was supposed to do. And it was a totally incorrect observation on my part.

I pounded on my poor little soul demanding that she stop complaining, start acting the way she "should" and forced her to be what others expected, instead of letting her be who God chose her to be. I have caused far more heartache to my soul then anyone else ever has.

My body didn't get much help either, in my early teens I hardly ate, often eating one meal a day, sometimes even less. I still have a poor eating cycle, sometimes I eat nothing all day forgetting to eat until my body is screaming for food. In my teens I slept sporadically and never brought it to my doctors attention that I was often getting less then 4 hours of sleep a night. I did self harm well into adulthood. I despised my appearance thinking it was modest, humble and godly to call myself ugly or unattractive. Just in case you don't know... that is none of those things.

This Sunday on the way to church our family was discussing how we feel God is giving us some much needed answers to some pretty serious issues we've been dealing with (We've been walking around in circles in the wilderness for quite some time.). Then my husband said, I feel like Vineyard is not the complete answer to our problems, but that it is part of the solution. As we began to worship the leader began to sing a beautiful song which I'd never heard. In the middle of the song she began to sing spontaneously, "Jesus is the answer, Jesus is the only answer." Of all the amazing thing that happened during that service that is what my son Micah focused on. He focused on the fact that God heard our conversation and gave us the answer to our question.  

Five years ago God told me what I can do. He told me to do something that, at the time, seemed impossible. Next May I WILL walk a marathon. Why? Because God said I can do it. There are other things over the past five years that God has told me I can do. Impossible things. I will do those things too.

I woke this morning to a pink, purple and orange sky and I asked, "Why am I awake?" God's voice rang in my ears, "I have something you need to see." I watched as He showed me how far I have come. And then like a warm blanket on a snow covered Saturday afternoon, I felt a word seeping into my mind. That word? Trust. I've heard that word, often over the years. Today, it became part of who I am. Finally, I am awake.  


*Intercession is just a fancy word for talking to God about the needs of other people.
** The marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometers or 26 miles and 385 yards, usually run as a road race. In most official marathons the race must be completed within 7 hours of start time.